"Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like Night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light,"


that is--the Folio of 1623. Ben did not weave the amazing tissue of
involved and contradictory falsities attributed to him by Baconians.
Beaumont died in the same year as Shakspere, who died in the depths
of the country, weary of London. Has Mr. Greenwood found obituary
poems dropped on the grave of the famous Beaumont? Did Fletcher, did
Jonson, produce one melodious tear for the loss of their friend; in
Fletcher's case his constant partner? No? Were the poets, then,
aware that Beaumont was a humbug, whose poems and plays were written
by Bacon? {174a}

I am not to discuss Shakespeare's Will, the "second-best bed," and so
forth. But as Shakespeare's Will says not a word about his books, it
is decided by Mr. Greenwood that he had no books. Mr. Greenwood is a
lawyer; so was my late friend Mr. Charles Elton, Q.C., of White
Staunton, who remarks that Shakespeare bequeathed "all the rest of my
goods, chattels, leases, &c., to my son-in-law, John Hall, gent."
(He really WAS a "gent." with authentic coat-armour.)

It is with Mr. Elton's opinion, not with my ignorance, that Mr.
Greenwood must argue in proof of the view that "goods" are
necessarily exclusive of books, for Mr. Elton takes it as a quite
natural fact that Shakespeare's books passed, with his other goods,
to Mr. Hall, and thence to a Mr. Nash, to whom Mr. Hall left "my
study of books" {175a} (library). I only give this as a lawyer's